I just finished the passengers side floor panels today. As on the drivers side, I replaced the whole part on the outside as well as some parts above the crossmembers where the rust already came through.

The rear part of the floorpanel was finished last weekend - it was quite tricky to reshape that part, but i'm happy with the result.

on the outside i had to remove the outer layer of the fold, as the sheet between the outer parts of the sill was quite rusty and I had to restore some parts of it. The rest had been treated with rust-converter and now i have shiny new metal from inside and out:

Both folds have been treated with Owatrol oil, that's why I haven't coated those parts with primer yet.I recieved some 200 EUR of rust-converter, cavity protection (fluid film), underbody coating etc last week, so I also started to paint the rear axle with owatrol oil - really great stuff!

Sorry for the bad quality of the last 3 pictures - the crappy samsung phone did not focus properly and crashed when I tried to take a picture of the rear axle...

Today I removed the engine and stripped the whole front excet front axle and steering - I want to keep the front axle support on until the car has been fixated on the car bench as it adds some strength to the shell.

Both front suspension struts were sent to the trash - I'll use evo 7/8 ones + Eibach springs and FWD front knuckles, as they have a sligtly lower steering arm, so the steering links will remain in roughly the same angle. Brakes will be taken over from my FWD - 296mm with 2-pot calipers (=evo4 gravel spec).
As I found a nearly rust-free front axle support i'll also dump the one after removing it. All bolts and bushings will also be replaced.

I also changed my mind about the engine I'll use - found a much more economical solution:

It's a 1970 fichtel & sachs 47cc 2-stroke. No timing belts, no turbo - much more reliable and dirt-cheap services

Well, actually it's for my DKW motorbike which is my daily-driver for driving to work and shopping. As I finally got the last seals and bearings 2 weeks ago, I rebuilt the engine over the last 2 Weekends.

Well, finally I fount a little time for an update. I took a few days off to make some progress with the car.

Last weekend I mounted the body on the car bench and built a toolset for the front. I had an Evo 9 set and lots of old opel ascona/manta supports to modify - surprisingly the evo9 set nearly matched the necessary points. I'ts really not like they've developed a whole new car but it looks more like they've just improved and altered the initial design.The shiny red painted supports are the evo9 ones - only modified by adding plates on the side so I didn't had to alter the mountig holes. These parts are now suitable for E39 and CT9

After removing the supports the slaughter began:

It took me nearly 2 days to remove the front, as the drawings in the workshop manual aren't that accurate, so especially on the sides I had to remove layer by layer to get an idea of the structure. And as Mitsubishi didn't save any steel the joint between the A-pillar, firewall and front members is MASSIVE. Unfortunately they used high-tensile steel mixed with "standard" body sheet (firewall) - so everywhere these different metrials are joined or layered, only rust is left of the low-grade steel when mixed with years of water and salt...

Today I stripped all the remaining parts off the RHD frontcut like brake lines, wiring loom, steering column, pedals etc and started to seperate the front from the firewall

The "new" front should be in place this weekend. As soon as I've made my decisions on where to route all the lines through the interior and where to put the hadraulic handbrake I can paint the floor, engine compartment and front+rear axles/supports with the chassis paint that arrived today and finally can start to put parts back on the car instead of removing more and more

I'll use chassis paint based on owatrol oil for the engine compartment, floor panels (both silver) and all front/rear axle parts (black). The rear axle already got painted with pure owatrol oil which inhibits all light rust and gives an epoxy-like coating which can be painted. The paint is quite thick and flexible, giving good protection and a nice clean look.Also the wheel arches will be painted in multiple layers of this paint with special primer, so I only have to use some wax-based underbody-protection which looks much cleaner. This also allows for easy inspection for eventually growing new rust (scratches, stone chips, etc...) - standard underbody-coating only covers anything going on underneath and falls off when it's already too late and the damage is done...

All cavities will be treated with fluid film liq A and after a few months when fluid film reached every last fold I'll apply a final coating with mike sanders wax.

owatrol and fluid film are used for water ballast tanks on ships or containers for derusting and protection against seawater - really great stuff and approved to work under harshest conditions...

Fenders, boot lid and the left side panel will be painted at the paintshop - I want it to look good and match the rest of the car, so i'm not doing any experiments by painting it myself without the necessary equipment...

Yesterday I rebuilt both side sills at the front and replaced some rusty parts within the firewall/wheel wells:

And today I fitted the "new" front. Was quite tricky to get the whole part to fit as I left both floor panel pieces on the structure:

It took ~3 hours to fit in and matching all important measurements. The car bench tools matched almost perfectly on the first try, but the upper crossmembers were a little bit off. But at the end I got a perfect fit with only 1mm error in the diagonal measurement but dead on for the longitudal ones. Both sides are already welded on the upper and lower crossmembers. On the left side I finished welding from the outside, the rest will be done during the week after work...

I finally finished welding today except the left outer part of the side sill - I spent 3 hours to rebuild the right hand side to look completely smooth (well, looks quite ugly on the pictures due to the bad camera quality...) so I had to skip the left side today and will finish it sometimes after hours this week.

Starts to look like a car again The tooling will be removed as soon as I finished the left side sill (don't want to risk any warpage now).

After 3 layers of primer the rear axle parts also got their first colour coating:

I'll add 1-2 more layers of paint during the week and start to paint the front axle parts as well as the engine compartment and the floor panels.

I finished the left side sill yesterday, removed the car bench tools and sealed all folds and seams with owatrol oil so today the first 2 layers of primer were applied:

Starts to look like a car again

I have to remove the windscreen this week and fix some small rust at the A-pillars, then I'll paint the upper part of the firewall up to the windscreen and the a-pillar/crossmember joint. I also found a good solution how to route all the brake/steering/fuel-lines through the firewall and rear floor so I'll spend some more money in goodridge parts next week

New windscreen trims already arrived - I already had a brand new trim for the hatchback, but they are completely different from the limousine, so they will join the ever-growing collection of brand parts in my basement. Someday I can build a whole car out of brand new parts - a new 6G72 DOHC engine is already in my collection

As I have to rebuild an evo2 rally car engine which died because of ECU failure The progresses are a little bit smaller than hoped - but heres a little update:

Sealant and the final layer of silver chassis-paint applied to the front:

(I'm not sure yet if I should keep the insulation mat in place or drop it...)

Interior painted and with new noise-dampening mats:

Rear axle finally assembled, with all new bolts/nuts and joints:

Currently i'm painting the front axle/subframe parts:

After priming with owatrol oil:

And after the first layer of paint:

Ordered another ~200 EUR worth of bolts/nuts/washers/brackets/rubber bushings/etc from mitsubishi - hopefully everything will arrive within the next week. Already got all the ball joints for rear and front suspension and steering - only the rear steering link bellows are still missing.
Target for next weekend is to fit the brake/steering/fuel lines and get the car back on it's own wheels so I can move it to another lift.

I also finally received the bolts for the modified rear diff, so I'll post some pictures of it as soon as I assembled it.

Aaaand, it's back on its own wheels
(well, not quite - the wheeels are from a carisma, but they fit )

And here i've hidden all the new parts from 1st pic of this post:

Some bolts and rubber shims are on backorder, but they should arrive within the next ~2 weeks...

And (again?) the rear axle:

I also assembled the rear LSD. I'll have to wait for the bearings to arrive, then I can install it to the housing:

(Sorry for the bad quality, but the cam didn't want to focus properly...)

All 4 suspension struts and the front knuckles are only for moving the car. I'm waiting for the evo/galant/eibach suspension to arrive and will use the front knuckles from my FWD E33 as the wheel bearings in them are only ~10k kms old...